


Troll in the Bathroom

by olivemartini



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Romance, first year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 02:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4461254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron searches out Hermione and tries to apologize for calling her a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Troll in the Bathroom

**Author's Note:**

> This story was previously on my quotev account. Hope you like it.

Ron still could not believe that he had done that. Not the part about knocking out a full grown troll- he had the feeling being friends with the great Harry Potter would enter him into much stranger and much more dangerous situations than that. He was more concerned about the part where he had made Hermione Granger, resident know it all, cry.  
To put it simply, making girls lock themselves in bathroom stalls and bawl their eyes out was not an every day activity for him, nor one that he enjoys. Sure, he had made his sister Ginny cry quite often, but he normally would get a black eye in return. It was quite disconcerting to him to know that Hermione had spent the day sitting on a toilet seat, rubbing tears off of her face and trying to quiet her sobs, refusing to talk to anyone. She had missed the Halloween Feast, something he wouldn't do even if you offered a thousand galleons. It made his insides squirm with guilt, and he had spent last night staring up at the ceiling, wondering why he had said what he did.  
Harry didn't see it the same way he did. Harry thought that since they had a tackled the troll that they were even, forgiven. Though Ron had no doubt that they were forgiven, that was not enough for him. He had seen the look on her face as she rushed off- horrified, lower lip trembling, tears already spilling over. The look of hurt was matched by no other that he had seen.  
It wasn't Hermione's fault that she was smarter than him. Schoolwork and spells were simply what she was good at. Who was he to ruin that for her, if that's what she enjoyed? How would he feel, if every time he won a game of wizard's chest or did good in quidditch, if someone would make fun of him for it? He called her a know it all. That was true, but swallowing a text book was something that should have been admired.  
"It's no wonder no one can stand her," He had said. "She's a nightmare, honestly." And because of what? she had only been trying to help him learn a spell, even if she did use a slightly bossy tone of voice. And then, to make matters worse, when she heard him say that, she did not tell anyone why she was crying, did not blame him, didn't even argue against the accusation. She had taken the blame for the troll situation, when it should of been him, Ron, to take the fall.  
It was eating him up on the inside. He got up, turning to go through the portrait hole, right in the middle of the game of chess he was playing with Fred and George. "Where are you going?" They asked in synch. They always talked like that.  
"Need to apologize to someone." He mumbled. The twins exchanged a glance, then got up to walk with him. "What are you doing?" He asked in exasperation.  
"Making sure you don't get long along the way." Fred said cheerfully, whistling.  
"Hermione's in the library, by the way." George added pleasantly. Ron grumbled something incoherently.  
"Nice girl, Hermione." Fred continued.  
"I for one won't mind when she's my sister in law." George laughed as Ron started to splutter, trying to argue. The twins turned the corner, laughing. True to their word, they had walked him to the library. Ron could see Hermione's bushy hair from where he stood. Thankfully, there was an open seat across from her.  
"Can I talk to you?" Ron asked in a low voice, trying to convey how urgent this was.  
Hermione looked up, surprised, but pleased. "Er, sure. I was just about to leave." They gather up her books (which were quite a lot) half in her arm, and half in his. Together, they walked in silence down to the edge of the lake. To his surprise, Hermione dumped her precious books in the dirt and picked up a rock, chucking it out to the center of the lake.  
"Nice distance," He said approvingly. "But the wrist movements wrong. See?" He threw the rock like a Frisbee, flicking his wrist so it flew even further than hers.  
"Like this?" She tried, but somehow managed to go behind them, nailing a Slytherin seventh year in the back of the head.  
"Duck!" He pulled her down behind a rock, where they hid, muffling their laughter, until the pack of nasty students had moved on, the one still rubbing his head. "that was pretty awesome. Seemed like you threw it pretty hard."  
"I did." She giggled, looking down at the ground guiltily. "So you said you wanted to talk to me?"  
"Yeah, I did. I just wanted to say I'm sorry about yesterday." The mood changed almost instantly. The sparkle left her eyes, and she looked at the ground. She sat down, leaning against the rock.  
"There's nothing to apologize for." Her voice was small, tired. Ron felt his guilt increase.  
"Well I'm apologizing anyways. I shouldn't have said that. I was just jealous that you could do the spell and I couldn't. You're not a nightmare Hermione." He sat down beside her, startled to hear her sniffing, like she was trying to fight of tears. "Will you at least look at me?"  
She did, turning to give him a weak smile. There was one tear on her cheek, sliding down her face. "That's not what bothered me, not the nightmare part." Hermione turned away from him, looking off into the distance. "I didn't have any friends at my old school. My muggle one."  
"I'm sure you had some," Ron interjected helpfully.  
"No." She shook her head, not seeming bothered by that fact. "I didn't. You can imagine why, I'm a bit insufferable, aren't I?"  
"A bit bossy maybe." He admitted sheepishly.  
"Well I really wanted to have friends. Be invited over, listen to the secrets, not get made fun of. so when I got the letter for Hogwarts, I thought that maybe its like that for everyone with magic, this not fitting in. So I came hear, and tried to do my best at everything so I would fit in. The girls in the dorms put up with me, and Harry was nice to me." She turned to him, suddenly distraught. "I thought I was helping you in charms Ron, I really did. I wanted to help you, I thought we were friends," At this point, her lower lip began to tremble and she burst into tears. "But then I heard you say the no one likes me thing, and then I realized you really didn't like me, and I didn't have any friends at all, because who wants to be friends with a bushy haired, buck teethed know it all like myself?"  
Ron felt awful. There was a lump in his throat now. "No, Hermione, no."  
But she kept talking, determined to get the words out. "I wanted friends so badly Ron." The look on her face was desperation, one similar to a starving man being taunted with food he can't have. "But I lost my chance. I'm going to be the odd man out for the rest of my life, and it's no one's fault but m-mine." Her sniffles burst into full fledged tears, and she fell into Ron's arms.  
It would not be the last time that Ron had to hold a crying Hermione. But at that moment, it was the first time, and a peculiar turn of events that he had not seen coming. Indeed, if he did know that this was going to happen, he would not have come at all. So he kept still, patting her awkwardly on the back. "You've got friends."  
"Who?" She sniffled. He could feel the damp spots her tears had put in his shirt, but found that he didn't mind very much.  
"Harry." He smiled at her, then stood, helping her up. She was watching him wearily, as if wondering what he thought about her tears. "And me. Fred and George to, I expect, they find you funny."  
"We're friends?" She asked with a smile. "Really and truly?"  
"Really and truly." He looked over at her, wondering how he could have looked over such a wonderful, brilliant, talented witch. "After all, you can't do something like knock out a troll and not be friends."  
"We'll be friends forever then." She threw her head back and laughed, stumbling into him.  
"Best friends." They smiled at each other, setting their friendship in stone once and for all.


End file.
